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Reflections on Obama’s Indonesia Odyssey
Frontpagemagazine ^ | 11-16-10 | Howard Rotberg

Posted on 11/16/2010 4:56:44 AM PST by SJackson

Obama is at it again. First, he awarded America’s highest civilian award – the Medal of Freedom – to Mary Robinson who presided over the infamous Durban Conference of 2001, where Islamic countries were allowed to highjack a conference about racism into a hatefest against the one country in the Middle East (Israel) that has a functioning justice system protecting minority rights.

Then he went to Cairo and showed his intentions to appease radical Islam by accepting that tension between the West and Islam has had nothing to do with Muslim actions against the West but was “fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”

And then he uttered the infamous words, equating the glorious tradition of justice, freedom and tolerance in America with that of totalitarian countries like Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: Obama contended that America and Muslim countries “share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

As a lawyer myself, I can tell you that the American justice system is not perfect, but I would much rather be tried for a crime in America, Israel or Canada than any of the Muslim countries. And, as a Jew, the idea that Muslim countries, most of which have ethnically cleansed themselves of Jews (and are now doing the same with Christians) share the same degree of “tolerance” as do we in the West, is, quite simply, an obscenity.

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So, Obama has now visited his boyhood home of Indonesia. Granted, Indonesia does have some form of democracy, perhaps the most democracy in the Islamic world. But, once again, Obama has sought to further western submission to radical Islam by morally equating America with far lesser lights when it comes to liberal democracy. Specifically, he stated in Indonesia that the United States and Indonesia have “shared values” and that “our nations show that hundreds of millions who hold different beliefs can be united in freedom under one flag.” He claimed that in Indonesia, under its Muslim majority (87% of the population is Muslim) “people choose to worship God as they please. Islam flourishes, but so do other faiths.”

The biggest problem with these words are that they are blatantly false. The other problem is why would an American president, sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, travel the Islamic world, with the message that American is responsible for the Islamic sense of victimization, and that Islam is correct in the sense that the Islamic notion of democracy under Sharia law and the dictates of the Koran is equivalent to the Judeo-Christian notion of liberal democracy, based on separation of Church and State, and an emphasis on Justice. All the talk of “tolerance” in the Islamic world obviously refers to something very different to what I see as tolerance.

For let us look at Indonesia. Although the Western media does not seem too interested, there is a disturbing recent history of violence and oppression of minority religions, especially towards Christians around the time of the East Timor independence movement, and more recently towards a minority Islamic sect called Ahmadiyah.

With respect to Christian persecution, read about the atrocities in the central Indonesian area called Sulawesi and about the extremist Islamists (tolerated by authorities) called the Laskar Jihad.

The January, 1999, anti-Christian violence resulted in the death of tens of thousands. Chris Wilson documented the ethnic cleansing in North Maluku in his book Ethno-Religious Violence in Indonesia: From Soil to God. (Oxon: Routledge, 2008).

The Asian Human Rights Commission in a study released last February concluded that there is no religious freedom in Indonesia. It stated that “There is continuing concern at the distinctions made in legal documents between the six recognized religions of Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism, and the adverse impact on the freedom of thought, conscience and religion of people belonging to minorities, ethnic groups and indigenous peoples in Indonesia.” There are lesser rights for non-recognized religions like Judaism, or for those who accept no religion and are atheists. A blasphemy law criminalizes speech and other expression by those outside the officially recognized religions.

Read on the internet about the terrible persecution of the Ahmadiyah minority Muslim sect, which is under violent intimidation in both Indonesia and Pakistan. But of course wars between Muslim sects (such as Sunni versus Shi’a) are a continuous problem in the supposed tolerant world of Islam.

Indonesia does not recognize Israel; that is, it does not believe that Jews can live in peace in the small historic Jewish homeland, surrounded by hostile Muslim states. Israelis are not allowed to travel to Indonesia. I do not believe it has ever objected to any of the numerous statements from radical Islamist groups and states that Israel should be “wiped out”.

And so, to the American president who reserves his criticisms for Israel’s homebuilding around its historic capital of Jerusalem, there is no criticizing Indonesian Muslims, Egyptian Muslims, or Palestinian Muslims. There is only continued praise for them and insistence that Americans and Muslims share similar values. There is never a request that Muslims take responsibility for their problems, only an appeasement-like agreement that their problems would disappear if Americans and Israelis would only submit a little more to this tolerant religion of peace.

We should be very suspicious of President Obama and what this all means for the future of our children and grandchildren. We have been handed a precious legacy of freedom and we should not stand idly by, as our legacy is squandered on the alter of moral relativism and false notions of tolerance.

Howard Rotberg (www.howardrotberg.ca) is a Canadian author, whose most recent book is TOLERism: The Ideology Revealed (Mantua Books).


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: obamaindonesiatrip

1 posted on 11/16/2010 4:56:46 AM PST by SJackson
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To: SJackson

“We should be very suspicious of President Obama and what this all means for the future of our children and grandchildren. We have been handed a precious legacy of freedom and we should not stand idly by, as our legacy is squandered on the alter of moral relativism and false notions of tolerance.”

Excellent article...the fact is that Obama never was a Christian. In my opinion he is the anti christ. And the media acts surprised.....


2 posted on 11/16/2010 5:10:05 AM PST by oust the louse (When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.)
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To: SJackson
What most forget is that Marxists like Zero Obama have no problem with... IS:

After they have used a people, religion, country, region to death for seditious and malicious reasons... They have NO problem with murdering the whole population..

The Muzzies have no idea what they are playing with..
World Socialism could NUKE the muslim countrys and think nothing of it except as some kind of cleanup or other type of cleansing..
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Democracy is the road to socialism. -Karl Marx

Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. -V.I. Lenin

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism .-Karl Marx

3 posted on 11/16/2010 5:15:15 AM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole....)
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To: oust the louse

The Antichrist would not get the opposition that this fellow gets. I see Mohammed/Islam as the Antichrist and. Who are the ones striving so hard to capture Jerusalem from which the Antichrist is to proclaim his rule?


4 posted on 11/16/2010 5:17:57 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson.")
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To: oust the louse

This Obama fellow is a pretty good agent of the Antichrist but he is not the big guy.


5 posted on 11/16/2010 5:19:01 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson.")
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To: SJackson

Odumbo is without a religious compass, he is neither christian nor Muslim he is rudderless with no God, but himself he views as God. I do not believe he is the anti-christ. I strongly believe he has some anti-christ qualities but he is not necassarily the exact anti-christ - Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and many others were viewed as the anti-christ.

Odumbo is striving to appeal to everyone and he is a false leader that is falling down each and every day. Unfortunately the American Media put this guy on a pedestal and now he is being rejected by the same media that pumped up his ego and God like personality.

In America we have to be careful because he has a control and power issue. he desires absolute control and power of our everyday lifes. We do not have to live in fear of him, because that is what he desires - it is out of fear he gets what he desires. He is overstepping the powers of the presidency, be patient and and in matter of time he will be deemed mentally incompetent to be the president. Joe Biden will resign as the vice president and Hilary Clinton will become the acting president, this will all happen in 2011. there will be chaos in the country for a time, Odumbo will receive a pardon from Clinton in december 2011 and Palin will become the president in 2012. Odumbo will spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric facility at bethseda Naval base. people will be shocked on how such an accomplished man will fall so far. HE was never accomplished to begin with, he is an affirmive action recipent that has the inability to even find his way out of a paper bag.


6 posted on 11/16/2010 5:30:41 AM PST by hondact200 ( Lincoln Freed the Enslaved. Obama Enslaves the Free. Obama is Americas Greatest Threat)
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To: arthurus

Good Point....I was writing that on pure emotion. I won’t let it happen again....BUT This little skinny imbecile dirt bag obama fellow disgusts me on every level though. oops...I just did it again. My bad :)


7 posted on 11/16/2010 5:39:46 AM PST by oust the louse (When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.)
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To: oust the louse

I’m not totally convinced he isn’t the antiCHRIST, but he certainly is a disgusting agent of evil.


8 posted on 11/16/2010 6:14:12 AM PST by The Sons of Liberty (Psalm 109:8 Let his days be few and let another take his office. - Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin)
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To: SJackson

*


9 posted on 11/16/2010 6:36:36 AM PST by SweetCaroline (He is the Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. 1-John 2:22)
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To: arthurus

“This Obama fellow is a pretty good agent of the Antichrist but he is not the big guy.”
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Uh, right, uh, he ain’t uh, smooth enough uh, to uh, talk uh, without uh, one o’ them uh, whatchacallit thangs, uh, you know, uh, one o’ them there uh, tellyprimpers.


10 posted on 11/16/2010 2:55:19 PM PST by RipSawyer (Clem Hussein Kadiddlehopper would be a vast improvement.)
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To: hondact200

Careful, you may be subject to the windfall prophet’s tax.


11 posted on 11/16/2010 2:58:11 PM PST by RipSawyer (Clem Hussein Kadiddlehopper would be a vast improvement.)
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